by Oliver Tidy
Romney smiled nicely. ‘Do you know of anyone who works here who has?’
‘I’m sure one or two would have been. It’s not called the Parent-Teacher Association for nothing.’
They smiled at each other and Joy recognised something special in it.
‘Has the head, Foyle, been back to the school since he went on sick leave?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘That’s all I need to ask you for now,’ said Romney. ‘Don’t go leaving the country or anything, will you?’
‘You’re not serious, are you?’ she said a little too seriously.
Romney laughed easily. ‘No. Why? Going somewhere?’
‘Only my honeymoon.’
Marsh had to watch the smile curdle on Romney’s face, like a chocolate mask left too close to the fire.
‘It was my hen weekend.’ She held up her ring finger to show the engagement ring.
Romney rallied valiantly and forced the corners of his mouth apart again. ‘Congratulations, again.’
Julie looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, as though she realised Romney hadn’t known. ‘I’ll get that list,’ she said and left the room.
Marsh said, ‘Are we going to start talking to them now?’
After a long pause, Romney said, ‘Sorry. What?’
‘The staff. Are we going to start talking to them now?’
He seemed a little confused, a little paler, a little older. Then he gave the impression of coming back into focus and said, ‘Might as well. We’re here.’
Julie came back in. She handed over a piece of paper with the list of names. She said, ‘Do you know who it was? The dead person, I mean?’
‘Not yet.’
As Romney scanned the list of names Joy and Julie made eye contact and held it for a few seconds without knowing what to say to each other.
Romney said, ‘Not many on the payroll.’
‘We’re a small school.’
‘Who’s this at the bottom?’
‘Father Frank? Our local priest. He’s a regular visitor. St Bartholomew’s is a Catholic school.’
‘I didn’t know you were a Catholic.’
‘I’m not. You don’t have to be a Catholic to work here.’
‘But it helps?’ finished Romney. ‘I know a joke like that.’
‘I’ll start sending them in then, shall I?’ said Julie.
Romney seemed to have recovered from his jolt. ‘Yes, please. Let’s get started.’
While Julie was off organising cover for those they needed to interview, Romney read the list and said, ‘Five teachers – all women – three classroom assistants – all women, Betty the secretary, Father Frank and Mrs Chislett the caretaker. Is that normal, I wonder?’
‘Is what normal?’
‘No men working in the school. Is that what primary schools are like?’
‘I think it’s quite a typical picture of contemporary primary education,’ said Marsh.
‘It’s hardly surprising kids these days are so out of control.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, statistically probably half of the kids here come from broken homes. Most of them probably won’t see their dads. So that’s no male influence. Then they come to school and are surrounded by women. It’s not right, if you ask me. Children, especially boys, need male role models in their lives.’
‘While I agree with you in principle, I’d qualify that and say that children, especially boys, need the right male influence for there to be any advantage in it. Not much good having a dad at home who’s a lazy, wife-beating, gambling, alcoholic.’
Romney gave Marsh a long look before saying, ‘I suppose you’re right. Still, having no male contact in a school doesn’t seem healthy to me.’
‘There’s the priest. He’s a man.’
‘There’s some male contact that boys ought to be kept away from and Catholic priests come high up on my list for that.’
Marsh was spared any elaboration by the woman from the playground entering without knocking. She was still wearing her coat and her stern look of disapproval. They realised the latter was probably semi-permanent.
‘I gather you want to talk to me,’ she said.
‘We want to talk to everyone,’ said Romney. ‘Sit down, please. You are?’
‘Annette Sullivan.’
Romney put a tick against her name. She sat in the chair vacated by Julie.
‘How long have you been teaching here, Mrs Sullivan?’
‘It’s Ms and why is my length of service important?’
Romney looked taken aback by her attitude. ‘Just making conversation, Ms Sullivan.’
‘Detective Inspector, I’ve got better things to be doing than sitting around discussing my life with the police. Year six are supposed to be having a maths test.’
‘Would you mind just answering the question? The quicker you do, the quicker you can get back to them.’
‘I’ve been at St Bartholomew’s for twelve years.’
‘Are you a member of the PTA?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you ever been in the container that the PTA rents across the way in Dover Self Storage?’
‘Yes.’
‘When was the last time?’
‘Christmas.’
‘Quite sure about that?’
‘Positive.’
‘Thank you. That’s all. Would you mind telling anyone else who’s waiting outside to come in, please?’
Ms Sullivan took the hint and bustled out without another word.
‘With women like that around maybe men aren’t so important, after all,’ said Romney.
While they waited, they heard the sounds of a loud male voice echoing around the corridor outside. The door was pushed open and a tall, slim man with thin wispy hair, thick old-fashioned glasses and a dog collar stood before them, beaming with a mouth full of mismatched teeth.
‘Father Frank,’ he said, quite loudly. He extended his hand in their direction and they had little option if they didn’t want to give offence but to take turns to shake it. The man’s grip did nothing to convince either officer that the hand contained bones. And it was a bit damp.
Romney introduced himself and then Marsh while wiping his hand on the back of his trousers.
‘Terrible business,’ said the priest, making himself at home in the recently vacated chair. ‘Any idea who it was?’
‘If you mean the victim,’ said Romney, ‘no. If you mean who put him there, that’s why we’re here.’
Father Frank contrived his features to look astonished. He managed camp and Romney’s prejudices against men of the cloth instantly led him to suspect it went deeper than that.
‘Surely you don’t believe anyone working here had anything to do with it?’ said the priest, semi-theatrically-horrified.
‘Do with what?’ said Romney, slipping the lead off his awkward side.
‘The body in the freezer, of course. What do you think I’m talking about?’
‘Mind me asking what you know about it?’ said Romney.
‘No need to be so coy, Detective Inspector. Everyone in the village knows what was found.’
‘So does anyone in the village have anything to say to the police?’
Father Frank smiled. ‘Not to your face, I expect.’ His laugh was quite high-pitched and irritating.
‘You’re on our list of people to speak to,’ said Romney.
‘Thought I would be.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m a frequent visitor.’
‘Are you a member of the PTA?’
‘Not being either a parent or a teacher that’s one local club I couldn’t hope to get into.’ He laughed his shrill noise again and Romney didn’t even smile.
‘Have you ever been in the container in which the body was found?’
‘Sorry, no. Never.’
‘Do you know anything about anyone missing in the village over the last couple of months?’
&
nbsp; ‘Male of female?’
‘Anyone.’
Father Frank shook his head slowly and stuck his bottom lip out. ‘Not that recent. A mother and child went over the fence about six months ago.’
‘What do you mean, ‘over the fence’?’
‘Escaped, Inspector. Ran away. Made a break for freedom, never to be heard of again.’
Romney grunted. With a frosty air of finality, he said. ‘That’s all, thank you.’
Father Frank looked from one to the other of them and said, ‘Oh well. That was painless.’ He stood. ‘I do hear things in the village. I’ll keep an ear to the ground for you. Anything comes my way, I’ll get in touch.’
‘Thank you,’ said Romney. ‘Sergeant Marsh, give the gentleman one of your cards, please.’
Romney repeated his line about sending in anyone who was waiting outside and the priest slipped out, shutting the door behind him.
‘Flipping sky pilots,’ muttered Romney.
The rest of the staff duly trailed in, sat, answered the same questions and left again. By the time the last one had been seen they had learned only two things: all the teachers were on the PTA and none of them had been near the container since the previous Christmas. The PTA had held a little Christmas fair, and the tables and decorations and paraphernalia related to that had been kept in storage over at D&DSS.
‘What did the PTA rent the container for if it wasn’t needed regularly ?’ Romney asked Julie Carpenter when they were all back together again. ‘Money down the drain, surely.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that they rented it, as such,’ said Julie.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Two of the Holloway children go to school here. The PTA had an arrangement with the dad that they could store stuff there while St Bartholomew’s had its building work done.’
‘What building work?’
‘There was an extension built on to the school to incorporate the old storage rooms into one of the classrooms in key stage one.’
‘Is it finished?’
‘Yes.’
‘So why still store stuff across the way?’
‘Because the new storage space hasn’t been built yet. It’s my understanding that the building work ran over budget and there wasn’t the money to provide the planned new storage facility.’
Romney asked if the school kept a key for the unit. Together they went to the secretary.
Betty said there was a key. She stood and went to the little key cabinet – a small box fixed to the wall behind her with brightly labelled keys hanging on hooks.
Romney said, ‘If it’s there, don’t touch it. Just point to it.’ The women looked at him for an explanation. ‘Fingerprints,’ he said.
Betty looked inside. ‘Should be in here,’ she said. ‘But it’s not.’
‘Anywhere else it could be?’
Betty shook her head. ‘All the school-related keys are kept here.’
‘When do you remember last seeing it?’
‘I don’t, if I’m honest.’
‘And I suppose anyone who works here can help themselves to any key anytime they like, can they?’
‘That’s the idea,’ said Betty. ‘Cabinet’s not locked.’
Julie said, ‘You don’t really think that someone who works here has got anything to do with what was in the container, do you?’
Romney grinned but there was no warmth in it. ‘You’d be surprised how convincingly deceptive some people can be.’
Marsh wasn’t sure that Romney had meant it as a dig but she could see in Julie Carpenter’s crimson flush that she took it that way.
Romney noticed too and said quickly and quite softly, ‘That’s not what I meant, Julie.’
There was a long moment of awkwardness before Romney said, ‘Where will I find the site manager?’
Betty said, ‘She comes and goes throughout the day. She lives in the houses that back on to us over there.’ She pointed through a window. ‘Number seven. Want me to give her a call?’
‘No need,’ said Romney. ‘We can drop in on our way.’
They said their short goodbyes and headed back to their car.
As they traipsed across a now eerily quiet playground, Romney said, ‘I’m cross that the Holloways weren’t clearer over the arrangements for the unit. If they’d told us it was the PTA we wouldn’t have just wasted hours of police time.’
‘We’d have needed to speak to the school anyway, though, wouldn’t we?’ said Marsh.
‘Depends what the head of the PTA has to say. Maybe he’ll break down and confess.’
They detoured to number seven. The small front garden was well cared for, neat and tidy. The property looked well maintained, too. Romney used the metal door-knocker to make a noise that had a curtain twitching next door. There was no sign or sound of anyone at home at the caretaker’s.
He said, ‘You’ve got her number in your phone, haven’t you?’
Marsh nodded and took it out. She rang it until it went through to voice mail. She left a message.
Romney told Marsh to put one of her cards through the letterbox with a message to call them as soon as possible and then they headed back to the car.
Two of their tyres were flat.
‘Bastards,’ exploded Romney. He looked around them for any sign of the perpetrators hiding in the bushes enjoying the spectacle. ‘What did I tell you? Fucking people.’
Marsh said nothing. It was possible that they hadn’t been let down deliberately, just punctured by hazards in the car park.
Romney was crouching down inspecting one of the flats. ‘Look,’ he said. His fingers were picking at what looked like a knife slash. Romney huffed heavily. ‘Phone the station. Explain. Get them to send help. Tell them to hurry up about it.’ An idea struck him and he looked around for a CCTV camera. Being near an unmanned railway station there were three that he could see. ‘When you’ve done that find out who looks after the railway cameras, arrange to view this morning’s recording and then get on it. I want the bastards who did this.’
***
6
Romney left Marsh with the car, his keys and instructions that when it was fixed she should drive it around to collect him from the Holloways’ business empire. She watched his retreating back with a little pall of gloom settling over her. She needed the loo and her stomach was grumbling. She doubted that the cavalry would arrive for at least an hour and there wasn’t a toilet or a shop in sight.
She made the call to the police garage and decided to leave chasing up the cameras until she was back at the office.
She paced about and found herself at the main road. Through a hedge opposite, she saw a little group of statues and a trio of miniature rusting carriages overflowing with coal. Her interest stirred, she pushed her way through a gap in the trees for a closer look.
The installation commemorated Aylesham’s coal-mining past. There were buildings there, too. And one of them was a community café. Joy thought again of toilets and a sandwich. She took out her phone to let maintenance know to call her when they arrived. She said she was away from the car doing police business.
Romney had gone back to the school gate. He’d noticed another gate in the far fence – a necessary extra security measure inside the impenetrable hedge – that would provide a short cut to D&DSS and save him a few minutes’ walk. He summoned the secretary by working the intercom. After he explained himself, she buzzed him in. He crossed the playground, worked the stiff bolt set high out of children’s reach and let himself through.
He was standing in the field with all the containers and the rusting broken vehicles and machinery, the discarded household items and windswept rubbish. As well as evidence of Man’s intrusion, there was plenty for Mother Nature to be proud of.
He picked his way around the hazards and piles of animal shit, and through the nettles, ragwort and long grass. Despite the depressing visual nature of his surroundings the air in the country on the warm day was pleasant enough. And th
ere was birdsong. He stood still, closed his eyes for a moment to block out the eyesores, listened to a lark ascending and inhaled affectionately.
He tried to remember the line of a Houseman poem he’d once known all the way through by heart. He was searching his memory for the word that rhymed with brave when the unmistakeable deep-throated growling of a dog brought him quickly back to his present. He opened his eyes. Twenty feet in front of him an enormous head followed by a pair of thick, muscular shoulders rose slowly up out of the long grass on stout legs. The beast was snarling and staring in his direction. Romney recognised the breed: Rottweiler.
Externally, Romney didn’t move; internally, a lot happened. Without moving his head, he looked for another human, someone he could call to for assistance. There was no one. Just him and the dog, now on all its four huge paws, standing at its full height and looking like it could pull a train without much difficulty.
The dog’s ears were pinned back. It took a pace forward. It had not ceased its growling.
‘Easy, boy,’ said Romney. His voice betrayed his dread. Slowly, Romney showed the dog a raised, open palm. ‘Good boy.’
The dog took another pace and continued its low grumble.
Romney took a step backwards and tried to remember whether there was anything behind him to help him escape the promised mauling or trip him up.
The dog took two paces forwards and the tone and volume of its growl went up a level.
Romney could feel the sweat on his forehead, the liquefying of his breakfast and the weakness in his knees. He didn’t want to take his eyes from the beast but he had to look for a weapon or an escape.
The beast barked, making Romney flinch. A string of saliva hung from its spittled jaws to the grass at its paws.
Romney was rendered temporarily incapable of reasoned thought, of any thought. He acted purely on instinct, the instinct honed by generations of his ancestors’ evolutionary development – the development of the self-preservation gene; the instinct of survival. He turned and ran as fast as his legs, the nettles, his brogues and the uneven and obstructed ground would allow, knowing that the dog would not be far behind; knowing that the beast would be on him in seconds if he didn’t find an escape route and quickly. But there was nothing. Nothing to jump up on to, to put himself out of reach of those terrible, bone-crushing jaws.